Christopher Hitchens

It says she glorified suffering instead of easing it

(Newser) -
Was Mother Teresa overhyped? That's what a controversial Canadian study is alleging. The paper, published in the French-language religious journal Religieuses, argues that Teresa was "anything but a saint," and even found beauty in watching people suffer, the Times of India reports. Doctors who visited some of...
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Friends gather for memorial to controversial writer

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Intellectuals and celebrities from Salman Rushdie to Sean Penn turned out yesterday for a memorial service in New York for notorious writer Christopher Hitchens, who died last December , reports the Guardian . "He was an auto-contrarian: he contradicted himself as if he felt the only person really worth arguing with...
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'The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy,' he told Dawkins

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With barely two months left to live, Christopher Hitchens gave one last interview, to fellow atheist Richard Dawkins, taking the opportunity to bash the Catholic Church and totalitarianism. In the New Statesman interview, Hitchens' harshest words were for the Catholic Church, saying that every fascist government in Europe in the...
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Christopher Hitchens defended his notorious drinking habit to the end

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Christopher Hitchens defended his prolific smoking and drinking habits even though they probably killed him. "Whatever enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation," he once wrote, "is worth it to me." But does boozing really aid the creative process? Slate takes a...
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Morality is based on cancer struggle

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For fans of Christopher Hitchens , one final book. A memoir entitled Mortality will be released in early 2012; it's based on a series of articles the journalist wrote for Vanity Fair describing his battle with esophageal cancer, reports the Guardian . A spokesman noted that the book had been in...
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David Corn reflects on their time together

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There is no shortage of reflections on the life of Christopher Hitchens today, filled with memories and anecdotes that all seem to include the word "cocktail." Writing for Slate , David Corn recounts his "Hitchens tale," one that occurred some three decades ago while the two shared...
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Cancer claims one-of-a-kind firebrand author

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Author, intellectual, and firebrand atheist Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62 after a long fight with esophageal cancer. The British-born writer, who had lived in Washington DC since 1982, chronicled his illness with the same caustic insight he directed at targets including Bill Clinton, Mother Teresa, and...
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Christopher Hitchens thinks it's time to call Pakistan what it is: an enemy

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Last week, Admiral Mike Mullen called out Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency “as the most adroit double-dealing profiteer from terrorism in the entire region,” Christopher Hitchens writes for Slate . Mullen accused Pakistan of orchestrating the attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and Hitchens believes him; after all,...
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(Newser) -
Usually "public intellectuals" are supposed to add nuance to a discussion, but when it comes to al-Qaeda and 9/11, Christopher Hitchens has taken up a different motto: "Never, ever ignore the obvious," he writes for Slate . In this case, the obvious is this: Al-Qaeda is a "...
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US, NATO deserves part of the blame for this monster: Christopher Hitchens

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Western nations are to blame for not sooner confronting alleged war criminal Ratko Mladic and Serbian forces in the Balkans, making the violence there much worse and last much longer than it should have, writes Christopher Hitchens in Slate . "The monstrous character of Mladic and his movement needed no...
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And we ought to just admit we're out to oust Gadhafi: Christopher Hitchens

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The uprisings sweeping across the Arab world could never have happened if we hadn’t taken out Saddam Hussein—and we ought to admit we’re trying to give Moammar Gadhafi the same treatment, writes Christopher Hitchens of Slate . “Can anyone imagine how the Arab spring would have played...
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When will people stop paying to listen to him speak?

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Ever since Watergate, Henry Kissinger has deserved to be “shamed, ostracized, and excluded”—yet, for some reason, people still pay him to speak and have “dinners in his honor,” complains Christopher Hitchens on Slate . Well, the new Nixon tapes should finally change that: quotes reveal that...
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See why God is like a 'divine North Korea'

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Famous atheist Christopher Hitchens took on famous Catholic convert Tony Blair in a debate on whether religion is a good or bad thing for the world yesterday. And while it's impossible to declare a winner on such a subjective ... oh wait, this is 2010, which means we had an audience...
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Jalal Talabani wouldn't support death penalty for Tariq Aziz

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Iraqi president Jalal Talabani did something incredibly brave last week: He announced that he would not sign the death warrant for Tariq Aziz, who is, in Christopher Hitchens’ opinion, “one of Iraq’s worst enemies.” In a column for Slate , Hitchens reveals some little-known “appalling facts” about...
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That's why we've got such dopey candidates

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Here’s the state of politics today: In Connecticut, we have a guy who lied about serving in Vietnam running against a woman who used to run the WWE. America has, in short, a total dearth of “convincing or even plausible candidates,” and it’s easy to figure...
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And what's so terrible about calling the Jewish lobby powerful?

(Newser) -
Rick Sanchez is out of a job and apparently sorry about it, but exactly what is the problem with pointing out the obvious power of the Jewish lobby, asks Christopher Hitchens over at Slate. Washington's elite plainly swoon before pro-Israel group AIPAC, Hitchens writes, and the author's own "overlapping...
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Still, it's a nice gesture—except those praying for him to go to hell

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Today is “Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day,” but Christopher Hitchens himself “shall not be participating,” he tells the AP . The well-known atheist, diagnosed with esophageal cancer in June, has already eschewed the idea of a deathbed conversion, but the prayer idea went viral anyway. “I...
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Atheist says he's not into deathbed conversions

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Ever since being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, Christopher Hitchens has been hearing it from religious people—from those who are praying for his soul, to those who think the cancer is a punishment sent from God. He scoffs at the latter. “Why not a thunderbolt for yours...
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